The Record - to be read as if you are listening to a podcast recording
I want to start off by saying, I used to crave for people to look at me. When I say look at me, I mean really look at me, it didn't need to be anyone I know, hell it could have just been a stranger that I pass on the street. You see I work for an inbound call centre, so I spend my day hidden away in my small perfectly square cubical, talking to people over the phone and other then people I worked with I didn't talk to a lot of people face to face and even then most people just come in and get on with their day and then go home. Now I know you are probably thinking that I'm a hermit and spend my day ignoring people and keeping to myself. Well that's not the case I'm 25 and I've been told that I'm good looking, now I don't mean model-level looks but I was average not ugly but not overly handsome either. I've had girlfriends and spent nights after work down the pub with people from work along with going out for team drinks and dinners. However, even doing all that whenever people looked at me it felt like they were either staring through me or past me. The best way to describe it would be, have you ever been in front of a mirror but facing backwards away from it, and someone has walked up to you and started a conversation but when you look at their eyes you can see them looking at the at their own reflection and not really looking at you, even though you are in a conversation with them. Well, that's how I feel all the time as far back as I can remember, that's how I felt whenever someone was looking at me. I would get a stomach-turning feeling in my gut, my hair would stand on end, It was as if someone was staring right through me but ignoring my very being like I was just in the way and what or whoever was behind me was more interesting and mattered more than I did. Since I can remember that's how I always felt (sigh) anyway I suppose I should start at the beginning. A couple of weeks ago my grandad passed away, now my grandad was a nice and occasionally funny but he had a quirk that people in my family would always warn people before meeting him. I know every family has someone who they love but who can be embarrassing or would worry people if you didn't give them enough warning on their individual quirks. My granddad's quirk was that he never listened to music and I mean never, whenever he would get into a car and the radio was on her would ether bash at it to turn it off or start screaming at whoever was driving to turn it off. One time my mum and I went to my granddad's house as a surprise visit. As I walked into the living room, I had headphones in, I was listening along to avenged sevenfold "welcome to the family". It must have been too loud, because as soon as my grandad heard the music coming out of my headphones he sprinted to me, I didn't realise someone let alone someone of his age could move that fast, as soon as he closed the gap and was at me, he started screaming " TURN IT OFF, TURN IT OFF NOW, MAKE IT STOP, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR IT ANYMORE. Before I could turn the music down or even pull the headphones out of my ears, he yanked my headphones out of my ears grabbed my phone and threw it into the wall. It was so destroyed that it no longer looked like a phone it was just a mixer of broken glass and circuitry. 10 minutes later, the police turned up at his house banging on the door, it turned out that his neighbours had heard my grandad shouting and called the police after they heard a loud bang against the wall, fearing that my grandad was being attacked. The whole family was very careful after that day to ensure that there was never any music being played anywhere near my grandfather. I tell you this because after my grandfather passed away at the age of 75 from a heart attack, I had volunteered to help clean out his attic and pack away his belongings. While I was in the attic trying hard not to breathe in the dust as I moved thing around. I came across a box labelled "Evil everything in this box is to be burned when I die". Curiosity got the better of me and I open the box. Inside was an old record player, I was completely shocked, I had no idea why he would have something which was designed to play music. What surprised me more was, as I began to take the record player out of the box, I noticed that at the very bottom of the box hidden beneath the record player was an old record. I picked up the record which was completely covered in dust, so much so that it gave the record a dull grey look. I gave it a blow so I could read the title on the record but as I did, I ended up breathing more of the dust into my lungs then off the record. I began coughing god it must have sounded like a smoker's cough as my mum yelled up from the bottom of the attic ladder "Are you ok up their honey, want me to grab you some water". "No, no that's ok, I just breathed in a lot of dust, I'll be right down" I replied. The title of the record was "Private Eyes, by Hall & Oates" and on the back was the date August 29th, 1981. I headed down the ladder record in tow. "Hey, mum did you know this was up there or that he even had something like this as theirs a record player up their as well". "No, I had no idea", mum replied while taking the record out of my hand to have a closer look. "it may have been my mother's, but I'm surprised he would keep something like that, even it if did belong to her" she said while looking puzzled at the record. My grandma had died 15 years ago when I was 10 so unfortunately, she wasn't there to ask, maybe she could have warned me about it, that's if she even knew what it was The rest of the day I didn't think about the record player or the record, I just got on with going through the rest of the attic and the remaining portion of the house my mum needed help with and that was it. The rest of the week was a blur, between funeral arrangements, along with phone calls I had to make to the rest of the family and not to mention the funeral its self. My uncle did give a pretty funny speech about my grandad from when he was a kid which definitely helped help cheer everyone up. The Saturday after the funeral I was in the middle of doing some cleaning in the kitchen when I heard a knock at the door. I put down the cloth I was using to clean the sides and went to the front door. There was a red face delivery driver who as soon as I opened the door blurted out " Delivery for you, sorry I'm in a rush please sign for it" as he hands me the form to sign he dropped the pen, "sorry, sorry, where did it go, ah there it is" while bending over to get the pen, which had landed on my "welcome to the dark side" doormat his keys dropped out of his pocket. While he was fumbling with the pen and the key's, I had taken my own pen which I keep by the door for situations like this and signed and hand back the form to him, who then sprint as fast as his legs would carry him back to his van. I honestly thought he was going to do a burnout on my driveway with how fast he seemed to race off down the street. It was then I noticed the box that he had delivered. On top of the box was a note which read "I don't have a use for this and I was never a fan of Hall & Oates but maybe you'll enjoy it", Lots of love Mum XOXO When I opened the box, I was greeted by a clean and shiny record player and record. It seems my mum had done more than just pack it up, but she appears to have cleaned it as well. It looked brand new, it's funny thinking back now I don't understand why I didn't just sell it or throw it away, after all, I had no use for a record player. Well you know what they say about hindsight, it's 20/20, (sigh) (theirs a couple of seconds of silence) sorry, telling you about this is harder than I thought. After reading the note, I put the box to one side and finished up in the kitchen. About an hour later I made a cup of tea and sat down to see what was on TV, as per usual there was some reality TV shows and some crap popularity competition on an island. As there was nothing on, I thought I might as well listen to "private eyes". I set up the record player and set the vinyl down on the platter. As soon as I put the needle on the record, there was a high-pitched screeching sound and I froze. My muscles wouldn't react, for what felt like hours but must have only been a couple of seconds, all I could hear was the whining noise bouncing around in my head. Then as quickly as started it was over and the opening of "private eyes" began to play. "I see you, you see me" As the song began to play, I was snapped back to reality by a sizzling, burning pain in my left palm. I looked down at my hand and realised that I had cracked my cup and my hand now had a mixer of blood and boiling hot tea dripping through my fingers. I went to the kitchen to wash my now blistering red palm under some cold water, along with wrapping it in some bandages. I returned to the living room to see the record no longer spinning on the platter, I was so focused on my hand I had missed the whole song, which was just playing in the background. I reckon that the screeching noise was caused by the record player which probably hasn't been used in years. So, I packed away the vinyl and record player into a storage cupboard that I wasn't using and carried on with my weekend, nothing of note happened so ill fast forward to Monday morning before work. I woke up on Monday morning and I felt off, you know when you don't feel like yourself but you can't for the life of you figure out why. I decided to ignore it as it must have just been because of the burn in my hand. I got dressed packed my lunch for the day, I know its childish but I made a PBJ sandwich as I didn't have much in the house, and then got in my car to go to work. It was at the traffic lights that it happened, I looked over at the car alongside me and the woman who must have been in her early 20s looked at me. It was then I realised what I was feeling, she was looking at me, truly looking at me. For the first time instead of looking through me like I was some kind of ethereal spectre. I was being looked at. I got to work and I was dizzy almost nauseous with the feeling of being looked at, everyone's eyes were on me, I know how vain that sounds but that's what it felt like. That day was the first (sigh) and last carefree, peaceful day I've ever had. That night I had gone to bed with the cheesiest smile on my face and the "private eyes" song going around and around in my head. As I laid there that night staring at the ceiling, I kept thinking that even though I was alone in bed I could still feel that someone was watching me. I was watching the shadows on my ceiling dance around as cars passed by my window and street lamps shinned through the gaps in my curtains. It was then I saw it, a pair of sickly yellow and bloodshot eyes staring down at me. I thought it must be a trick of the light but then I saw them blink, I blinked hoping it would cause the illusion to fade but then there were 2 pairs of sickly yellow eyes staring at me. Then 3, 4, 10, 20, 50, I tried not to blink but I couldn't do it for longer than a minute. Within what felt like seconds, there was no longer a ceiling above me, it was just eyes, hundreds maybe thousands of sickly yellow eyes all blinking in unison with their gaze never faltering away from me. I couldn't move or close my eyes, all I did was lie there crying, wishing that they would stop looking at me, I just wanted to go back to be unseen. After a while the sun finally began to shine through my curtains, and just like that the eyes were gone but the feeling of being watched had not. I just kept telling myself that it was a nightmare or some kind of insomnia, I couldn't stop shaking, my eyes were red and sore from crying all night. I got dressed and left my house as quickly as I could. I was wearing mismatching shoes but by the time I realised, I was outside of my house and I couldn't bring myself to go back inside not for the shoes or my car keys. I caught the bus to work, even sitting at the back I could feel eyes on me, looking around I didn't see them but I knew they were there watching me. It was then I heard it, the bus radio was playing "private eyes", I put my headphones in but no matter what song I put on all I could hear was "private eyes". I ran off the bus as soon as it pulled outside if work. I got into the office and made a B line directly to my cubical, I just wanted to distract myself with work. The first call that came in, I started the conversation with my usual line and the response was "I see you, you see me". I dropped my headset and ran to the bathroom, I got into the stall, locked the door and just fell to the floor. Even sat on the stall floor, it felt like I was being watched. My eyes were bouncing around the stall walls and there was nothing, I was completely alone except the feeling was still there. It then dawned on me, the only place that was left for the eyes to be, I stared at my bandaged hand and bit by bit began to unwrap it. There they were, in the centre of my burned palm, a pair of sickly yellows eyes looking back at me and then they blinked. It's been 2 days since I started seeing the eyes and I finally understand what they want. Like me, all they wanted was to be seen but me seeing them wasn't enough, they need more people to see them, they want you to see them. I'm sorry but if you've gotten to the end of this recording then it's too late for you, you probably didn't notice the song playing in the background. "Private eyes They're watching you They see your every move Private eyes They're watching you Private eyes They're watching you” Category:Fanfic Category:Creepypasta